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It's really interesting watching the trials and tribulations of the modern teen.
One of the young women in the kids' "friends group" is very, very fond of young men. Unfortunately, while she was raised to be open about such things, she was also raised to think that she shouldn't sleep with someone who wasn't her boyfriend. It led to inevitable drama as she asked a young man she fancied to be her boyfriend, dallied with him for a month or so until she got bored, promptly dumped him, and within a week moved on to her next attraction.
Hurt feelings and anger flew hard and fast.
It's taken her four years to realize that it's a lot emotionally healthier to say, "Hey, would you like to have some meaningless sex?" than it is to say, "Hey, would you like to be my boyfriend?" and then dump the poor young man a few weeks later.
Ah, the games we play around relationships.
EDIT: How ridiculously appropriate.
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Indeed.
I will be going into some elements of this today for work.
One of my favorite part of construction type jobs is the prevalence of nicknames. Two people named Scott? No problem! That's Tiny and over there is Scooter!When your spreadsheet is due in 8 hours, you have time for "get me Dayle" "Dayle from accounting?" "No, Dale from Records..." *
If you need someone to say, pull you out of a concrete mold, while screaming over the sounds of heavy machinery, you really want to get the guy on the first try...
*this is probably one of the ways we wound up with last names....
As far as I know, last names arose for two reasons:
- Familial ties among nobles. "Leif Erikson" indicated that this was the Leif who was Erik's son. In small enough populations, this was sufficient.- Job descriptions for peasants. "Bob Wainwright" was short for "Bob the Wainwright", and ties right into your theory. The kids were expected to take up the parents' trade, so they inherited the name until they got a real job, at which point after twelve or thirteen years, it didn't make sense to change their names.
As far as I know, China and Japan followed the same model of using a second name to indicate familial ties, but I'd love to hear any other "last name" origins from other cultures...
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Interestingly, the young woman discussing her amorous trials and travails last night didn't bother me in the least... but one of the young men nearly set me off.
I ordered pizza for all of them from a (relatively) local chain that does perfectly reasonable pizza. Not the best by any means, but perfectly good. The young man came in and was upset that we hadn't ordered Domino's pizza through him to get the 20% employee discount. The conversation was classic:
"Why the **** did you get pizza from MMs? You could have saved 20% if you'd ordered through me!"
"Because MMs is better and we don't like Domino's."
"Who cares? You could have saved a lot of money and gotten a lot more pizza!"
He wouldn't let it go for a solid 5 minutes. And yet another, "Who cares about quality? Price is everything!"
And as you all know, it always tweaks me:
(1) Someone else was providing food for you. And you dare to complain because you think they spent too much? Either shut up and eat, or boycott the food in protest of economic excess.
(2) Even when I was a grad student pulling in all of $12,000 a year, I didn't eat Domino's. I'd rather make my own food or go hungry than eat something I consider awful. So don't have the audacity to tell me what I should be eating when I'm providing food to you for free.
I see it all the time, and it always incenses me: A host puts out food and one of the guests inevitably complains about how they don't like it, how it's too extravagant, or whatnot. Y'know what? If someone's invited you into their home and offered to feed you for free, you can at least be courteous enough to refrain from eating anything you don't like without loudly complaining about how much you don't like it.
LM always hosted a huge food fest whose centerpiece was a shellfish stew. I never once commented on it; I simply didn't eat it. The only reason LM knows at all is because she specifically asked me about it, and I responded, "I'm sorry, I don't care for shellfish. But you've provided me with plenty of other things to eat so don't worry about me."
It's called courtesy. Kids should try it some time.
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Indeed.
I will be going into some elements of this today for work.
Nakedness, meaningless sex, or dumping someone?
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Interestingly, the young woman discussing her amorous trials and travails last night didn't bother me in the least... but one of the young men nearly set me off.
I ordered pizza for all of them from a (relatively) local chain that does perfectly reasonable pizza. Not the best by any means, but perfectly good. The young man came in and was upset that we hadn't ordered Domino's pizza through him to get the 20% employee discount. The conversation was classic:
"Why the **** did you get pizza from MMs? You could have saved 20% if you'd ordered through me!"
"Because MMs is better and we don't like Domino's."
"Who cares? You could have saved a lot of money and gotten a lot more pizza!"
I wonder if that behavior was impacted by desire to feel useful. That guy might felt that with his employee discount he would be contributing to the situation and that could cloud his judgement that lead to the follow up statement.
Or he doesn't feel that Domino quality is that much worse to excuse ignoring the discount. (employee loyalty this days?! :P)
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Interestingly, the young woman discussing her amorous trials and travails last night didn't bother me in the least... but one of the young men nearly set me off.
I ordered pizza for all of them from a (relatively) local chain that does perfectly reasonable pizza. Not the best by any means, but perfectly good. The young man came in and was upset that we hadn't ordered Domino's pizza through him to get the 20% employee discount. The conversation was classic:
"Why the **** did you get pizza from MMs? You could have saved 20% if you'd ordered through me!"
"Because MMs is better and we don't like Domino's."
"Who cares? You could have saved a lot of money and gotten a lot more pizza!"I wonder if that behavior was impacted by desire to feel useful. That guy might felt that with his employee discount he would be contributing to the situation and that could cloud his judgement that lead to the follow up statement.
Or he doesn't feel that Domino quality is that much worse to excuse ignoring the discount. (employee loyalty this days?! :P)
Oh, yeah. A simple, "You should let your parents know that I get a 20% discount at Domino's," would have been appreciated as a generous offer.
The issue was his belligerence and refusal to let it go. From his opening statement of, "Why the **** did you order from another place?" to his spending at least 5 minutes arguing about it, he turned what MIGHT have been a polite gesture into a, "Why the h*** did I allow you into my house again?" moment...
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Your local Domino's pizza sucks? That's odd, the only pizza place near us that makes better pie is a high-end sports bar that is HIGHLY specialized in extremely expensive immense top-tier quality ingredient za.
If he was that busted up about price he should have been asking of Little Caesars anyhow.
One of my favorite part of construction type jobs is the prevalence of nicknames. Two people named Scott? No problem! That's Tiny and over there is Scooter!When your spreadsheet is due in 8 hours, you have time for "get me Dayle" "Dayle from accounting?" "No, Dale from Records..." *
If you need someone to say, pull you out of a concrete mold, while screaming over the sounds of heavy machinery, you really want to get the guy on the first try...
*this is probably one of the ways we wound up with last names....
As far as I know, last names arose for two reasons:
- Familial ties among nobles. "Leif Erikson" indicated that this was the Leif who was Erik's son. In small enough populations, this was sufficient.
- Job descriptions for peasants. "Bob Wainwright" was short for "Bob the Wainwright", and ties right into your theory. The kids were expected to take up the parents' trade, so they inherited the name until they got a real job, at which point after twelve or thirteen years, it didn't make sense to change their names.As far as I know, China and Japan followed the same model of using a second name to indicate familial ties, but I'd love to hear any other "last name" origins from other cultures...
A lot of names are derived from place of (family or personal) origin - a simple peasant moving to another village or town might get to be known by his old living place (contrary to popular opinion geographic mobility was significant since ancient times - until XIX century cities typically had negative natural growth and had to be constantly feed with economic immigration) while an aristocrat would be known by his estate.
In Poland second most popular surname is Nowak, which meant "the new guy" basically saying that family was viewed as not local at some moment in their history. The most popular is Kowalski ("Smith's" - a lot of Polish surnames are technically adjectives masquerading as proper nouns).
One of my favorite part of construction type jobs is the prevalence of nicknames. Two people named Scott? No problem! That's Tiny and over there is Scooter!When your spreadsheet is due in 8 hours, you have time for "get me Dayle" "Dayle from accounting?" "No, Dale from Records..." *
If you need someone to say, pull you out of a concrete mold, while screaming over the sounds of heavy machinery, you really want to get the guy on the first try...
*this is probably one of the ways we wound up with last names....
As far as I know, last names arose for two reasons:
- Familial ties among nobles. "Leif Erikson" indicated that this was the Leif who was Erik's son. In small enough populations, this was sufficient.
- Job descriptions for peasants. "Bob Wainwright" was short for "Bob the Wainwright", and ties right into your theory. The kids were expected to take up the parents' trade, so they inherited the name until they got a real job, at which point after twelve or thirteen years, it didn't make sense to change their names.As far as I know, China and Japan followed the same model of using a second name to indicate familial ties, but I'd love to hear any other "last name" origins from other cultures...
A lot of names are derived from place of (family or personal) origin - a simple peasant moving to another village or town might get to be known by his old living place (contrary to popular opinion geographic mobility was significant since ancient times - until XIX century cities typically had negative natural growth and had to be constantly feed with economic immigration) while an aristocrat would be known by his estate.
In Poland second most popular surname is Nowak, which meant "the new guy" basically saying that family was viewed as not local at some moment in their history. The most popular is Kowalski ("Smith's" - a lot of Polish surnames are technically adjectives masquerading...
Interesting! I've always wondered about my own Polish surname, what it means and how common it is.
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My own surname is supposedly a name of a coat of arms of minor noble family from Northern Poland, with the word itself derived from the Polish word meaning "to coo" (pigeon's vocalization) and metaphorically might mean "to flirt" - which is rather inaccurate in my case, because I dislike pigeons and I am terrible bad at flirting.
On the other hand that would explain why pigeons seem to love to peek into my windows and even occasionally enter inside.
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Your local Domino's pizza sucks? That's odd, the only pizza place near us that makes better pie is a high-end sports bar that is HIGHLY specialized in extremely expensive immense top-tier quality ingredient za.
If he was that busted up about price he should have been asking of Little Caesars anyhow.
After telling Shiro that story, he wants to try Domino's just to see whether they've improved, but for us the issue is sugar: They put a LOT of sugar in their tomato sauce, to the point that their pizza tastes more like a dessert than a dinner. It's been many years since I've tried them, but both of my kids would rather go hungry than eat Domino's, so they're still doing something wrong. Many Americans have a much higher tolerance for sugar than we do (southern sweet tea being a fantastic example), so it might be our aversion to oversweetened things. None of us even drink sodas.
Around here the hierarchy for me is:
THIN CRUST:
- Round Table
- Little Star
---- Significant break in quality ----
- Mountain Mike's
- Zachary's
---- Significant break in quality ----
- Domino's
---- Significant break in quality ----
- Store-bought frozen pizza
- Little Caesar's
---- Significant break in quality ----
- Papa John's
DEEP DISH:
- Little Star
- Zachary's
But I haven't bought Round Table in years because they hit over $40 for a 16" pizza, which is asking a bit much.
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Interesting! I've always wondered about my own Polish surname, what it means and how common it is.
Rather uncommon.
My first guess it would be that your family either owned or lived in Stryki village or some other village of the same name.
Apparently there is also a Silesian dish that is called stryki but I think you mentioned your family coming from eastern Poland which makes it less likely connection.
Another possible source - stryk can mean "noose", though apparently it was also an alternate form of stryj, meaning paternal uncle.
Note that your family name is masculine form. Proper form for a woman would be Strykowska (or Strykówna for a maiden name, but it's generally considered archaic by now and unmarried women or women that kept their maiden name after marriage generally use the same form as those who take their husband's name).
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Interestingly, the young woman discussing her amorous trials and travails last night didn't bother me in the least... but one of the young men nearly set me off.
I ordered pizza for all of them from a (relatively) local chain that does perfectly reasonable pizza. Not the best by any means, but perfectly good. The young man came in and was upset that we hadn't ordered Domino's pizza through him to get the 20% employee discount. The conversation was classic:
"Why the **** did you get pizza from MMs? You could have saved 20% if you'd ordered through me!"
"Because MMs is better and we don't like Domino's."
"Who cares? You could have saved a lot of money and gotten a lot more pizza!"He wouldn't let it go for a solid 5 minutes. And yet another, "Who cares about quality? Price is everything!"
And as you all know, it always tweaks me:
(1) Someone else was providing food for you. And you dare to complain because you think they spent too much? Either shut up and eat, or boycott the food in protest of economic excess.
(2) Even when I was a grad student pulling in all of $12,000 a year, I didn't eat Domino's. I'd rather make my own food or go hungry than eat something I consider awful. So don't have the audacity to tell me what I should be eating when I'm providing food to you for free.I see it all the time, and it always incenses me: A host puts out food and one of the guests inevitably complains about how they don't like it, how it's too extravagant, or whatnot. Y'know what? If someone's invited you into their home and offered to feed you for free, you can at least be courteous enough to refrain from eating anything you don't like without loudly complaining about how much you don't like it.
LM always hosted a huge food fest whose centerpiece was a shellfish stew. I never once commented on it; I simply didn't eat it. The only reason LM knows at all is because she specifically asked me about it, and I responded, "I'm sorry, I don't care for shellfish. But you've provided me with plenty of...
Had a few interesting experiences with this growing up. It's definitely a cultural thing- some people come from a culture where it is definitely quality over quantity, there are also cultures where one gets food from the expensive place for guests. I've also seen issues where the expensive food for the guest means everyone eats consierably less. This may be a bad intersection where these two issues meet, and he was trying to be helpful by saying "don't get the expensive food for me, get me the cheap, more plentiful stuff". I wouldn't take it personally, but that's just me.
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Nakedness, meaningless sex, or dumping someone?Indeed.
I will be going into some elements of this today for work.
Yes.
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My own surname is supposedly a name of a coat of arms of minor noble family from Northern Poland, with the word itself derived from the Polish word meaning "to coo" (pigeon's vocalization) and metaphorically might mean "to flirt" - which is rather inaccurate in my case, because I dislike pigeons and I am terrible bad at flirting.
On the other hand that would explain why pigeons seem to love to peek into my windows and even occasionally enter inside.
Adventurer 1- Keep quiet. Dragons can hear you a long way off.
Adventurer 2- Yeah, I'm being careful, but I think the dragon is right around this corner. Let's go on three. One, two...THREE!
Drejk- COO!
Adventurer 1- ...what?
Adventurer 2- Did that thing just coo like a bird?
Drejk- COOOOOOO!
Adventurer 1- You gotta be kidding me.
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Akhem!
It's
Haven't you heard a pigeon in your life?
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Interesting! I've always wondered about my own Polish surname, what it means and how common it is.Rather uncommon.
My first guess it would be that your family either owned or lived in Stryki village or some other village of the same name.
Apparently there is also a Silesian dish that is called stryki but I think you mentioned your family coming from eastern Poland which makes it less likely connection.
Another possible source - stryk can mean "noose", though apparently it was also an alternate form of stryj, meaning paternal uncle.
Note that your family name is masculine form. Proper form for a woman would be Strykowska (or Strykówna for a maiden name, but it's generally considered archaic by now and unmarried women or women that kept their maiden name after marriage generally use the same form as those who take their husband's name).
My grandmother used the feminine form in conversation, and I had a professor at university who spoke Polish and automatically addressed me that way, but my grandparents married in America after grandpa emigrated and the US doesn't recognize feminine/masculine forms of surnames, so the whole family has always used the masculine form.
My grandmother's family were Mihaliks, from Tarnow.
Interesting! I've always wondered about my own Polish surname, what it means and how common it is.Rather uncommon.
My first guess it would be that your family either owned or lived in Stryki village or some other village of the same name.
Apparently there is also a Silesian dish that is called stryki but I think you mentioned your family coming from eastern Poland which makes it less likely connection.
Another possible source - stryk can mean "noose", though apparently it was also an alternate form of stryj, meaning paternal uncle.
Note that your family name is masculine form. Proper form for a woman would be Strykowska (or Strykówna for a maiden name, but it's generally considered archaic by now and unmarried women or women that kept their maiden name after marriage generally use the same form as those who take their husband's name).
My grandmother used the feminine form in conversation, and I had a professor at university who spoke Polish and automatically addressed me that way, but my grandparents married in America after grandpa emigrated and the US doesn't recognize feminine/masculine forms of surnames, the whole family has always used the masculine form.
My grandmother's family were Mihaliks, from Tarnow.
Also, thank you, I'd never heard of that village! All I know of my grandfather's family before he left is that my great-grandfather kept the horses and drove the troika for a wealthy family. And they farmed. But this was the turn of the century (he left in 1908), so I'm pretty sure that *everyone* farmed if they wanted to eat.
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Drejk- COOOOOOO!Adventurer 1- You gotta be kidding me.
Druid/Wizard "Well, if dinosaurs are birds and dragons are dinosaurs...."
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A new guy noticed me grabbing the cut off saw this morning so he says "What are you cutting today?" "Nothing" I say "what do you need the saw for then?" "Comfort" I say.
Book club this evening; I expected it to last for an hour, and it lasted for three. Nice pub; the train is crammed with late night bicycle boys, though.
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One of my favorite part of construction type jobs is the prevalence of nicknames.I don't know why, but I've never been given a nickname. Case in point: the last landscaping company I worked for had four other guys named David*, and I couldn't go by my middle name, because there were also three guys named Michael**. When I started working there, instead of giving me a nickname, I simply became the only one without a nickname.
I just realized that there was a fourth Mike that I forgot about. Sorry, Greeny.
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The day started with a punctured tire as I drove past a small construction area. I blame the construction crew, and I have the picture to prove it. Also, someone in the accounting department blew a tire from an embedded screw at the same construction site. Sloppy work.
The day continued with having to explain how Ctrl-Alt-Del works to change a password...and telling the client where the keys most likely are on the keyboard...and then ultimately having to type the passwords for him...
And it's another night where I'm still working.
These are the days that make me once again question why I got out of bed at all.
It's a regional accent.
Up at this rodiculous hour to drive WW to Boston so he can fly to Denver for the TSYR annual train-a-thon. (i.e. They're going to wear funny pajamas, play with swords, and then drink scotch, every day all weekend.)
He's meeting me and the kids back in Dallas on Monday.
I just realized that there was a fourth Mike that I forgot about. Sorry, Greeny.One of my favorite part of construction type jobs is the prevalence of nicknames.I don't know why, but I've never been given a nickname. Case in point: the last landscaping company I worked for had four other guys named David*, and I couldn't go by my middle name, because there were also three guys named Michael**. When I started working there, instead of giving me a nickname, I simply became the only one without a nickname.
I'm the guy that walks in a room and is immediately assigned a nickname, pretty much ever since birth.
It's not a hard name to pronounce, nor overly long or especially uncommon (though good luck finding a mug or keychain with it).
It's just one of those mysteries of life.
Meh. Expansion pack for Ghost Recon: Breakpoint is 40 euro... Three DLCs that I would like to play but it will have to wait for a sale or getting more money on PayPal.
There is apparently a free expansion that went live after I finished the base game but I'd rather wait with playing until after I get the paid DLCs to avoid installing the game for the free expansion, playing through , uninstall, waiting to get the DLCs, installing, some more.
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Made it to Boston and back by 730. Didn't die.
Really tired.
Now I get to do laundry and pack, because the kids and I leave tomorrow.
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I just found out I have an interview Monday.
Holy s%~*.
Wednesday: Our Senior Vice President (SVP) goes on a tirade about "useless" error messages that are confusing or unhelpful, and how it's now his crusade to do away with all of them.
Friday: Our new hire pinged me with an error message and a screenshot:
"Error: You must be a subscriber to access this content"
"User: Jane Doe, Subscriber"
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Up at this rodiculous hour to drive WW to Boston so he can fly to Denver for the TSYR annual train-a-thon. (i.e. They're going to wear funny pajamas, play with swords, and then drink scotch, every day all weekend.)
That sounds like a bloody good time to me.
On a similar topic, we've found a new venue, so Monday fencing is back! BACK!
Whoopee!
I just found out I have an interview Monday.
Holy s#@~.
W00000t! Fingers crossed!
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I have seen people.
Non-gamer people.
People from my elementary school.
There was a lot of discussion about divorces, kids, school reminiscing, living abroad, and such.
Though apparently almost everyone present watched Stranger Things...
Except me. I don't do series or streaming.
We also had pizza.
There was also some talk about me not drinking alcohol with multiple offers of buying me beer.
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I have seen people.
Non-gamer people.
People from my elementary school.
There was a lot of discussion about divorces, kids, school reminiscing, living abroad, and such.
Though apparently almost everyone present watched Stranger Things...
Except me. I don't do series or streaming.
We also had pizza.
There was also some talk about me not drinking alcohol with multiple offers of buying me beer.
I completely forgot you don't drink.
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Car is loaded except for the cooler and our personal bags. All the cousins are having a slumber party in the living room tonight, and I will hopefully get almost seven hours of sleep. We will see.
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Okay. Travel safe.
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Sounds like a little slice of hell.I have seen people.
Non-gamer people.
People from my elementary school.
There was a lot of discussion about divorces, kids, school reminiscing, living abroad, and such.
Though apparently almost everyone present watched Stranger Things...
Except me. I don't do series or streaming.
We also had pizza.
There was also some talk about me not drinking alcohol with multiple offers of buying me beer.
The pizza was good.
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It's that day of the year again.
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It's that day of the year again.
Indeed, Gorgeous Grandma Day is one of the highlights of summer!
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It's that day of the year again.
Woot! It's I'm a whole year younger than Mall Santa day!
Happy Birthday, old man!
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BLERGH
SIGH
To sum up: Captain Yesterday did some amazing hardscape work, people watched shows that were either blasé or outright bad, family drama (with degrees of great, good, funny, bad, and OMG I'm so sorry you had to deal with that! (especially you with Eve, lisamarlene)), and Drejk made some cool monsters (some in response to the thread!)
I am now caught up.
As for what has been happening to me, I've been silly busy as a company that used to have up to 25 people working at it is pared down to 5 full time staff (one of which has decided to phone it in and not be a team player at all). The number of departments I divide my time with is truly nuts.
ASIDE: Also nuts? That a company with 5 full time staff has 7 different department entries on our time slips.
As for my Dad's cancer diagnosis that I posted about months ago: Since I last posted, all the news has been good. His form of bone cancer is basically osteoporosis on steroids. He was suffering from calcium poisoning as his bones rapidly began to resemble swiss cheese. They've lowered his calcium levels to normal and the treatment regimen they've put him on has a 90% survival rate over five years. So to say we're optimistic is an understatement.
Hopefully I can keep up with everything now that things are beginning to slow down here.
Fantasy Monster: Dog-Baiter Gremlin.
A new annoying gremlin.
Welcome! I have always felt that cats were our natural allies, and here is a beautiful hybrid! Huzzah!
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The kids and I spent three hours hiking Wolf's Neck State Park outside if Freeport, Maine today. We watched a pair of osprey tending at least two chicks in their nest on an island just offshore.
It was pretty freaking awesome.
The kids picked wild blueberries along the trail as we hiked....
I watched a mother osprey teach her young fledglings how to fish in a pond out behind where I work some years ago. It was absolutely amazing! The following year they all came back to the same pond and greeted each other while flying not twenty feet over our heads, calling out in excited squeaks and calls.
Those birds are incredible.
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It's that day of the year again.
Happy Birthday, Vany!